Swiss Post delivered exactly 20,188 children’s letters and cards to the iconic Christmas figure and assisted him in answering his mail.

19,448 of the 20,188 children’s letters received were answered. At 96 percent, this corresponds to the long-term average. Unfortunately, the remaining letters could not be answered by Santa Claus because of missing sender information or insufficient details about the author.

The majority of the letters continue to be from Western Switzerland (11,267 letters), followed by German-speaking Switzerland (3,815 letters) and Italian-speaking Switzerland (3,411 letters).

Christmas stories prove popular among listeners

For the first time, Swiss Post also published three Christmas stories as audio dramas in 2017. The stories available on www.soundcloud.com/swisspost attracted a great deal of traffic: the stories were listened to approximately 2,500 times. Swiss Post received numerous positive reactions to the stories via its social media channels.

For more than 60 years, letters to Santa have been read by a team of helpers in Chiasso, sorted by language and – the quality of the sender’s address permitting – answered in one of the three national languages, as well as in English.